


wide open heart

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Emotionally Constipated Hockey Players, Getting Together, Multi, Pittsburgh Penguins, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:41:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: “Tiger,” she says, and he gently sets his teeth against her jaw in response. “You know he’s in love with you, right?”“What?” he asks, lifting his head, not sure he heard her correctly. “Who?”“Sidney."





	wide open heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itsahockeyplay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsahockeyplay/gifts).



**August 2015**

 

The first time Anna meets anyone from the team is at a preseason barbecue at Sid’s house.

She says she isn’t nervous, but Zhenya knows better from how long she takes picking out shoes and how she dresses just a little bit fancier than a backyard cookout warrants.

“Wow, Loubou _tin_ ,” he says, accenting the last syllable obnoxiously. She flips him off with one hand and continues blending her eyeshadow with the other. He brushes her hair aside and  softly kisses her neck: _just teasing_ , and _things will be okay,_  in one gesture.

When they arrive, she shadows him, not breaking off to chat with the other wives and girlfriends, giving brief smiles and even fewer words to the people that speak to them.

“They’re going to think you’re a bitch, Jerry,” he tells her, because he knows teasing, and not sympathy, is what is going to get her to relax.

“I _am_ a bitch,” she retorts, arching a manicured brow at him.

“I know,” he answers fondly. “And you’re _wonderful_. but-“ he breaks off what he was going to say when he catches sight of Sid, heading their way, looking purposeful.

“Here we go,” Zhenya says, amused. “Prepare yourself, Sid is going to captain at you.”

“Ah,” Anna says, and gives Sid a cool smile when he reaches them.

“Hey,” Sid says, smiling. “You guys doing alright?” He looks at Zhenya expectantly and Zhenya dutifully introduces Anna to him. Sid’s smile is wide and genuine.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he tells her. Zhenya recognizes his clear, enunciated “taking to nonnative English speakers” voice from his own first years in America. Sid is one of the precious few who can manage to do it without sounding like a dick. “Do you like Pittsburgh so far?”

Anna doesn’t roll her eyes but Zhenya can tell she wants to. “Is not Moscow.”

Sid laughs his goofy laugh and beams at her like she just made the most hilarious joke he’s ever heard. “No, it’s not. G had a hard time adjusting when he first came too, eh? But I hope you’ll find things to like about it like he did.” He smiles at Zhenya now, warm and fond. Zhenya, like he always does, feels a little like preening in the Klieg light of Sid’s full attention. He’s always felt this way and doesn’t quite know why.

Anna is giving Sid a sharp, assessing look, and it probably startles Sid and Zhenya both when she says, decisively, “You come to dinner.”

“Oh, for sure,” Sid says. “When is a good time for you?”

He and Anna pull out their phones and Zhenya watches them. Sid is quietly helping Anna pronounce the days of the week and their dark heads are bent close together as they compare their calendars. Zhenya stares. It’s….doing something undefinable to his insides, watching them.

It’s decided Sid is following Zhenya home after morning skate on Wednesday. Zhenya watches Anna watch Sid walk away, wondering what the hell she’s up to.

 

* * *

 

That night, Zhenya nuzzles at Anna’s neck while she scrolls through Instagram on her phone. She’s busily following other wives and girlfriends of his teammates, which is good, but they’re warm and comfortable in bed and she smells really nice and, well.

She hums, not displeased, but when she finally puts her phone down and lets him roll her so she’s lying beneath him and he can press kisses into the hollow of her throat, she decides she has something to discuss.

“Tiger,” she says, and he gently sets his teeth against her jaw in response. “You know he’s in love with you, right?”

“What?” he asks, lifting his head, not sure he heard her correctly. “ _Who_?”

“Sidney,” she answers, the unspoken and fond _of course, you idiot_ clear.

Zhenya laughs at first, thinking she’s making some kind of cute joke, like the media has done all these years: the two-headed monster, et cetera. But she’s not laughing. Smiling a little, but not laughing.

“I mean it,” she says. Then she frowns. “Wait, are you telling me you had no idea? _Zhenya_!” She slides out from under him, looking….. upset?

“What the fuck… “ Zhenya says. “I honestly have no idea what the hell you’re talking about!”

Anna stares at him for a long moment. “Oh,” she says. “Oh that poor man. Zhenya, you idiot.”

“Excuse me?” he says, incredulous. “Even if—” Anna rolls her eyes so hard all he can see is the whites of them. “ _If_ this is somehow true and he does—” He can’t even finish the thought, it’s so outlandish. “Why wouldn’t it bother you?”

Anna sighs. “It’s not like I don’t know about you, Zhenya. About the boys, back when you were younger. _You_ told me. And Sid? Well. He’s very beautiful, Zhenya, surely you’ve at least noticed _that_.”

Zhenya swallows. Nobody who spends any amount of time around Sid could miss the fact that he’s ridiculously good-looking. But Zhenya’s always typically been more attracted to women than men, and he’s always had Sid squared away in a dedicated box titled: “Good friend and captain.” Brother-in-arms, even. He’s never—

Anna’s continuing: “And, well, I saw how he was with you, with us, and I thought, either you knew and didn’t want him, or you were afraid of what I would think. And I have no problem with it. And if he likes women at all, then, well.” Her voice goes low and smoky. “I would kill to get my hands all over that.”

Zhenya stares at her, feeling utterly poleaxed. “So you… invited him to dinner.”

Anna smiles a little, looking faraway for a moment. “He’s so sweet, isn’t he? So caring and attentive, even to the woman of the man he loves. Think about what he must be like in bed, what being the focus of all that attention would be like.”

Zhenya is helpless to stop the shudder that goes through him. Anna sees it and gives him a predatory, self-satisfied smile.

“Think about it, tiger,” she murmurs, and climbs into his lap. “What would it be like, if he was here too?” She leans down to kiss him, the fragrant curtain of her hair sweeping across Zhenya’s face and shoulders as she sits back up, smoothly pulling off her filmy lace négligée.

“Think about it,” she purrs, and, as in most things, Zhenya is obedient to her.

 

* * *

 

Zhenya continues to think about it, over the next couple of days. Not sex with Sid, at least, not the entire time, but about what Anna had seen and what Anna had proposed.

“G!” Sid says happily, when Zhenya arrives at the rink for practice. Zhenya tries to make some sort of normal expression and response, but inside he’s noting the sight of Sid’s whole face lighting up upon seeing him with a kind of wonder.

The thing is… he can see it now. The way Sid listens with his whole body when Zhenya speaks, the way the timbre of his voice changes when he talks to him. The way he laughs at Zhenya’s stupid jokes. Fuck, has it always been like this?

Zhenya lets himself look, too, at Sid’s full lips and sharp jaw, his thick, powerful body. And Zhenya’s throat goes dry. He thinks about seeing Anna and Sid at the barbecue, talking together, heads bent close.

He looks, and he considers, and he can feel it kindling inside him. The same fire that sparked when he met Anna for the first time. Faster with Sid, because he _knows_ Sid already. Has known him for so long, has grown up with him. He knows how extraordinary a person Sid is, what kind of heart he has.

Can you fall in love _this_ quickly? he wonders. Can you love two people _this_ much?

He goes home to Anna each day between the barbeque and the Wednesday dinner bewildered. Anna just smiles, and pets his hair, and tells him between biting kisses to trust her.

 

* * *

 

Come Wednesday, Zhenya is a mess. He’s distracted all throughout practice, glancing at Sid every chance he gets, whipping his head around when he hears his ridiculous laugh echo across the ice.

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Duper asks him. Zhenya just shakes his head.

 

* * *

 

Neither he nor Anna can cook for shit, so they’re getting takeout from Kavsar.

“Have to see if he likes Russian food, right?” Anna says. She grins at Zhenya as she dumps a container of carrot salad into a serving dish. She’s acting nonchalant but he notices that she’s dug out their nicest dishes and that she’s fussing a little unnecessarily with the food’s presentation.

“Anushka,” he says, and goes to wrap his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. He sighs, trying to relax himself.

“It’ll be okay, tiger,” she says softly, and pats his hand. God, he must really look a wreck.  

The doorbell rings. Zhenya opens it to Sid, who gives him a crinkle-eyed smile. “Hey,” he says warmly. His hair is still damp from his post-practice shower, and he carefully removes his shoes at the door, polite to a fault. Zhenya stares at the vulnerable back of his neck as he does so, gold chain just peeping from the collar of his t-shirt. He wants to put his lips there, wrap his arms around him like he’d just held Anna in the kitchen.

“Sid!” Anna says brightly from the doorway to the kitchen. She swoops in to kiss Sid on both cheeks, perhaps a little more affectionately than is standard practice. Sid blushes.

When Zhenya and Anna go back to plating their food, Sid sits at the counter on a barstool and looks the proceedings over with sparkling eyes. He wants to chirp, Zhenya can tell.

“Nice work, eh?” Sid says to Zhenya. Zhenya snorts, and points a serving spoon at him.

“Just because you think you such good cook.”

Sid grins at him. Anna whacks Zhenya playfully in the chest with the back of her hand. “No cooking, only bad eggs. Tea okay though.”

Zhenya sighs dramatically, then drops a kiss on the top of Anna’s head. “And she too pretty for cook.”

Sid’s red, and he looks down at his hands. “Oh, for sure,” he says, with a nervous little laugh.

Anna’s looking at Sid with the expression she saves for babies and puppies when she thinks no one sees her. She busies herself with the food again, and mutters to Zhenya in Russian: “My god, how could you be around that for years and not want to just _ruin_ him?”

“I don’t know,” Zhenya says. 

 

* * *

 

They eat out on the patio. It’s a beautiful afternoon, the wine Anna picked is amazing, and it’s just...good. Sid and Zhenya talk a little shop, but Sid is very consciously making sure Anna stays in the conversation, solicitous and thoughtful. He asks her about where she’s from, her family, her career. It’s hard since her English isn’t as far along as Zhenya’s, but Zhenya just… loves him all the more for trying. Not everyone in America has been as kind.

Anna, for her part, has been flirting outrageously with him. It’s elegant, everything she does is, but it’s overt enough to visibly fluster Sid at times. Zhenya hopes it’s a sign he likes her.

“So, Sid,” Anna says, smoldering at him from behind her wine glass. “You have girlfriend?”

“Uh, no,” Sid says, and looks down at his own glass. Zhenya clocks the tightness of his shoulders and feels that desire to hold him rise up again.

“Like Russian girl?” Anna asks him, leaning back against the arm Zhenya’s slung across the back of her chair, tilting her head to show off the curve of her neck. Sid’s eyes dart between the both of them, uncertain. 

"...sure?" he says uncertainly. 

Anna reaches across the table, takes one of Sid’s hands in hers. He stares at her, hazel eyes wide. “Only like girl? Or boy too, sometimes?” Shit. She just went for it. Sid goes white, eyes flicking over to Zhenya. It hurts to see the fear in his eyes. Zhenya needs to fix it.

“Like I do?” Zhenya says, and Sid’s mouth drops open, staring at Zhenya like he’s never seen him before. Zhenya can feel his cheeks flush. Sid looks at Anna, like he expects her to maybe be surprised, but she smiles calmly at him, and strokes a thumb across Sid’s hand as she continues to hold it.

“What…” Sid says faintly. Zhenya and Anna look at each other.

“We’re gonna fuck this up,” Zhenya says to her.

“No, we are not,” she says back, and the fierce look in her eyes both kind of turns him on and settles him.

“Sid,” she says to him. “You like?” She gestures between herself and Zhenya with her free hand.

“What,” Sid says again. Anna turns to look at Zhenya, jerks her head. Zhenya doesn’t have any words, so he just reaches across the table and lays his hand over both of theirs.

‘Oh,” Sid breathes. “Oh my god.”

“I like, Sid,” Anna says, gentle. She’s rarely gentle. Sid must bring that out in her. “Zhenya— Geno love, I think.”

“You—” Sid’s eyes are glassy, and his voice is hoarse. “G?” He looks so scared, so uncertain, that Zhenya can’t take it anymore. He takes his free hand and brings it to their joined hands on the table, so that he’s cradling Sid’s and Anna’s between both of his.

“I’m sorry I’m not notice, Sid. Anna notice. She tell me, I start thinking. Realize… maybe I’m feel this way for a long time. I’m just stupid.” He shrugs self-deprecatingly.

“Anna noticed—” Sid says, and looks at her. She smiles at him.

“You love Zhenya,” she says, and Sid swallows.

“Yeah.” It comes out as a croak. Zhenya’s eyes feel hot. Sid loves him, Anna loves him. How did he get so fucking lucky?

“Date us?” he blurts, and braces for the worst but Sid is nodding, almost frantic.

“Yeah,” Sid says breathlessly. “Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

**October 2015**

 

The second game of the regular season is a loss to the Coyotes on the road. Sid and Zhenya are tired when they step, yawning, onto the Pittsburgh tarmac. They have two days off, though, and a long homestand coming up.

Sid comes home with Zhenya. It’s the way things are, now, more often than not.

“Good to see Anna,” Zhenya says as he drives, and Sid hums in tired agreement. Zhenya glances at him. “Good to kiss you whenever I’m want, too.” They have to be careful, on the road. He can’t see it in the darkened car, but he knows Sid’s turned red. It’s become one of his favorite activities, making Sid blush. “Maybe Anna wear lingerie we get her for birthday.” He hears Sid shift in his seat and grins.  

“Maybe I can fuck you,” Sid says, making Zhenya curse and stop too hard at the next traffic light.

“Sid!” he admonishes, and Sid laughs.

“You started it,” he says, and Zhenya can hear the smile in his voice. “Talking about Anna in lingerie and shit. That’s dirty pool.”

“I’m give you dirty,” Zhenya shoots back, and Sid thumps his head back against the headrest.

“Shut up and drive. _Following_ the speed limit,” Sid orders. Zhenya does two of those things.

 

* * *

 

By the time they get home, Zhenya’s so worked up he turns Sid around as soon as they’re inside the door, and kisses him up against it.

“Nice,” Anna says appreciatively from the hall. Zhenya breaks his kiss with Sid to turn and open his arms for her. “Hello, tiger.” She kisses him, then reaches for Sid. “Hi, babe.”

“Hey beautiful.” Sid gives her a wide, goofy smile and kisses her. “We missed you.”

“Oh, yes?” she says, and disentangles herself from them both with a smirk. “Miss you too.” She heads up the stairs, but pauses on the first landing to look over her shoulder at them as she lets her robe slip off her shoulders and pool on the floor.

She is, in fact, wearing the birthday lingerie.

 

* * *

 

After several lonely nights in empty hotel room beds, Zhenya is reveling in being home, Anna curled up with her head on his shoulder, Sid behind her with an arm wrapped around her waist. Everyone loose-limbed and sated.

It’s a miracle, he thinks sometimes, that they should all have found each other. Fallen for each other. Fit together so well.

“Good to have you home again,” Anna murmurs into his skin. “Both of you.” Sid makes a sleepy inquiring noise at the sound of Russian.

“She say is good to have us home,” Zhenya translates, and Sid sighs contentedly into Anna’s hair and reaches over her to stroke Zhenya’s cheek with his knuckles.

Between them, Anna lies still, almost too still. Like she’s thinking about something.

“What’s up, Jerry?” Zhenya asks her, making Sid lift his head to regard her as well, brows creasing in concern.

She’s smiling, but Zhenya notices her tear-bright eyes and sits up. “What?” he asks again, heart beginning to race. She smiles at him, brilliant and happy.

“Calm down,” she commands in English for Sid’s benefit. “Everything good. Very good.” Then she takes both their hands, and brings them down to rest against her stomach.

“No,” Sid breathes. “Yes? _Anna_?”

Zhenya can’t speak at all.

Anna laughs, and reaches up to touch their faces. “Yes. Coming end of May, maybe June. Win Cup for baby?”

“Fuck,” Sid says in lieu of an answer, voice choked with tears. Zhenya, for his part, already has them streaming down his face. Anna just laughs at them and tugs them both down to be kissed and to curl up against her.

“Family,” She murmurs, petting Sid’s head as he presses kisses to her abdomen because he’s as quietly sentimental as Zhenya is loudly sentimental. Zhenya sniffles into her neck and thinks, _yes_.

 

Family.


End file.
